DOCTORS EAST, DOCTORS WEST (278 pp.) Edward H.Hume, M.D.Norton ($3).
Snake meat was good for rheumatism, otter's liver for tuberculosis. For sore eyes, a fine salve could be made from bears' gall bladders. If dubious of such tried-&-true remedies, the ailing one shuffled down the street to get a heavenly diagnosis from an astrologer, or spiritual advice from one of the local fortune tellers. There was not much point, said the Chinese, in a foreign doctor coming to Changsha to open a foreign-style hospital.
But young Dr. Edward Hume, of Yale and Johns Hopkins, had been sent to Hunan Province to do just...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
